If you want to use IO::Select, maybe http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/97/18/index2a.html could give you some ideas on how to do it. I played around a lot with the base presented on this page, and enhanced it and the like, but I can't tell you if this can handle thousands of connections because I've never tried more than about 20 connections at the same time.

Best regards,
perl -le "s==*F=e=>y~\*martinF~stronat~=>s~[^\w]~~g=>chop,print"